SUMMARY:

In this article, Jan Kieniewicz offers an interpretation of the role of the intelligentsia in the situation of empire. For Kieniewicz, in the Polish case, the intelligentsia developed under the civilizational pressure of the empire and thus played the roles of both national harbinger and collaborator. The latter role manifested itself not only in some direct actions but also through the intelligentsia’s “silence.” Kieniewicz argues that the Polish intelligentsia was characterized by a silence that was reflective of its unique position under the civilizational pressure of East European empires. The silent Polish intelligentsia, according to Kieniewicz, was not a typical colonial group as it refused to recognize cultural distance or even a hierarchy between itself and its colonizers, and because it made sense of its existence in reference to Western values and not in opposition to them. The author sees the intelligentsia as a defensive force of a society against foreign domination. He believes that the fear of assimilation into the dominant nation characterized the dynamics of the Polish intelligentsia (in contrast to colonial relations in British India). According to Kieniewicz, due to the civilizational pressures of Germany and Russia as reflected in their educational systems, the Polish intelligentsia attempted to involve the masses in the national project and thus played a crucial role in shaping the Polish nation.